Intercultural communication that would make a caveman proud

In the progression of studying how to hone my leadership skills in a global context, my course has arrived at intercultural communication. As one would imagine, this area is rife with pitfalls and hazards because being a proficient communicator is not always enough. You must also take the time and energy to understand the culture you are interacting with and to not allow egocentrism to cause your inability to take on other people’s perspectives (Penn State World Campus, n.d.). However it is more common today than in any point in our shared history, that people from many cultures communicate on a daily basis (via electronic media). “Out of the world’s estimated 7 billion people, 6 billion have access to mobile phones. Far fewer – only 4.5 billion people – have access to working toilets. Of the 2.5 billion who don’t have proper sanitation, 1.1 billion defecate in the open (Wang, 2013). These numbers suggest that a person who owns a cell phone could be considered a member of a global electronic culture. Culture “includes all the distinct ways in which people in different geographic locations classify and represent their experience and act creatively” (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014, p. 40). Today, one of the most common ways people represent their experiences electronically is through emoji.

Emoji were created by Shigetaka Kurita and are a product of Japanese cultural obsession of communicating with images. When asked about what inspired him to work on an image-based form of communication, Kurita said: “Everything was shown by text. Even the weather forecast was displayed as ‘fine’. When I saw it, I found it difficult to understand. Japanese TV weather forecasts have always included pictures or symbols to describe the weather – for example, a picture of sun meant ‘sunny’. I’d rather see a picture of the sun, instead of a text saying ‘fine’.” (Schenker, 2016). He experienced a hindrance to communication and instead of seeing a problem, he created a solution so simple it would make a caveman proud; painting pictures on a digital wall that tell a story without need for interpreters. His pictorial electronic language is so pervasive, that you can see Tweets, Facebook posts and text messages that convey a complete message without using a single traditional character from any language.

The word “emoji” is a combination of two Japanese words that literally translates to “picture” (e) and “character” (moji) (Schenker, 2016). Emoji are becoming so mainstream, that the Oxford Dictionary word of the year for 2015 wasn’t word at all; it was the most commonly used emoji in that year:

(Steinmetz, 2015).

Emoji did have some hurdles to pass before becoming a planetary phenomenon. With so many different cell phone network carriers and different operating systems on those phones, the pictures literally didn’t always translate from phone to phone. With the decision by Apple in 2011 to install the emoji keyboard and The Unicode Standard, “a computing industry standard meant to ensure the consistent handling and encoding of text expressed in a majority of the globe’s writing systems”, emoji became a household item (Schenker, 2016).

Emoji are not an official language for conducting business, however they do offer a unique way for individuals to express feelings and innuendo without having it misinterpreted. It allows a global culture to communicate without having to master a shared spoken language and has brought lightheartedness and enjoyment to the sharing of experiences. As it has been said: a picture is worth a thousand words.

The United States of Emoji

(Shenker, 2016)

 

References

Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences (9th ed.). London: Routledge.

Penn State World Campus. (n.d.). Lesson 04: Global Communication. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from OLEAD 410: Leadership in Global Context: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1867265/modules/items/22824722

Schenker, M. (2016, October 11). The surprising history of emojis. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from Webdesignerdepot.com: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2016/10/the-surprising-history-of-emojis/

Steinmetz, K. (2015, November 16). Oxford’s 2015 word of the year is this emoji. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from Time.com: http://time.com/4114886/oxford-word-of-the-year-2015-emoji/

Wang, Y. (2013, March 25). More people have cell phones than toilets, U.N. study shows. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from Time.com: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/25/more-people-have-cell-phones-than-toilets-u-n-study-shows/